Breaking the Mice

As spring approaches and my nightmares turn to yard work,
I’m reminded of the time when my wife and I would start dusting off the bird feeders
so that we could enjoy a few of God’s creatures that don’t poop on our floor
when we welcome them to our home.In the
past, I would hang a feeder right outside our kitchen window so that we could
see the beautiful variety of East Texas birds up close as they pecked at the
bird seed and occasionally crashed into the window glass.It was kind of like watching NASCAR-where you
pretend to like the race itself but are really just waiting for a good
wreck.

The last time we displayed a feeder, I had just purchased
an elaborate bird feeder gazebo.It was
a Trump Tower for birds, but without the barricades, film crews, or Kanye
West.The night after I had proudly
installed the feeder, I was up late polishing off an entire sleeve of Girl
Scout Cookies (because I’m all about supporting the community), and I happened
to glance toward the kitchen window to see the new feeder gently swaying from
side to side.At first I assumed the
wind was blowing, but then I noticed that something alive was actually on the
feeder.I excitedly thought it might be
a kindred spirit of the bird world who stays up late raiding the pantry in his
underwear.Unfortunately, what I saw
when I reached the window made the hair on my back stand on end.The feeder was squirming with about six
hundred mice. It was like Black Friday
when they open the doors at Wal-Mart and the crowds rush in for incredible
sales on televisions and aerosol cheese product.

This could not stand!I wasn’t about to let a gang of greedy rodents
loot my bird feeder while I stood by and ate half a box of my kids’ favorite snacks.Therefore, once I finished my milk and
cookies, I sprang into action and devised a brilliant plan.The first step of my strategy involved
creeping undetected up to the feeder with a large trash bag to open and raise
up from underneath, enclosing both the feeder and the mice in the bag.The plan worked perfectly. I had the mice and
the feeder in the bag, and I had only screamed like a little girl with an
unusually high voice twice.

Unfortunately, that was also the last step in my
plan.I didn’t want to throw out my bird
feeder, so I had to figure out a way to separate the mice from the feeder and
remove the feeder from the bag without the mice escaping justice. Naturally, I headed for the garage to get a
hammer from my tool box.I had never
actually used the hammer on a nail, or anything else (I think it was still in
the package), but my dad would be proud that I was finally using one of the
many tools he had purchased for me out of pity.

The plan at this point was to shake the mice off of
the feeder down into a corner of the bag and then put the hammer to good use. Once I had a lump of mice bulging in the
corner of the bag, I suddenly realized that in my mouse-squashing mania, I had
forgotten to put on pants and was standing in my open garage in nothing but my
boxer briefs, holding a hammer and trash bag, and sweating profusely.(For some reason, Chippendales still hasn’t
called.)

To avoid scandalizing the neighborhood and possibly
being arrested, I shut the garage doors.I then knelt down with my hammer, closed my eyes, prayed that the Lord
would have mercy on their little vermin souls, and swung away.This is the point when I realized that the
“extra-strength” designation on household trash bags does not cover pulverizing
a wad of mice with a claw hammer.To my
horror, on my first blow (which missed my target entirely), a massive hole
opened up in the bag, and a stream of mice began leaping out into the
garage.At least two used me as a flabby
aircraft escape slide as they scurried up my arm and down my back on their way
to freedom.Throwing caution (and
suitable attire) to the wind, I raised the garage door and spent the next hour frantically
running around half-nude between our cars herding out mice with an old broom.If I weren’t in East Texas, this might have
seemed really weird and embarrassing.

These days, my prized bird feeder sits dusty and
unused (along with my hammer) in my storage building, and I’m sure I’ve become
the butt of jokes in mouse communities all over the Ark-La-Tex.I’m actually kind of glad they all got away
to live their lives in the splendor of nature-to be eaten by savage predators.I just hope the birds understand that that
the next time I’m tempted to hang a feeder, I think I’ll sit down for a NASCAR
race and some aerosol cheese product, instead.